The "Fatal Flaws" of Darwinian Theory

by
Larry Vardiman, Ph.D. *

Evolutionary genetic theory has a series of apparent "fatal flaws" that are well known to population geneticists, but that have not been effectively communicated to other scientists or the public. These fatal flaws have been recognized by leaders in the field for many decades--based upon logic and mathematical formulations. However, population geneticists have generally been very reluctant to openly acknowledge these theoretical problems, and a cloud of confusion has come to surround each issue.

Numerical simulation provides a definitive tool for empirically testing the reality of these fatal flaws and can resolve the confusion. At the 6th International Conference on Creationism in Pittsburgh on August 3-7, 2008, two papers will be presented on the results of tests that utilized numerical simulation of mutation and natural selection. They are entitled "Mendel's Accountant: A New Population Genetics Simulation Tool for Studying Mutation and Natural Selection" and "Using Numerical Simulation to Test the Validity of Neo-Darwinian Theory." The primary authors of these two papers are Dr. John Baumgardner and Dr. John Sanford, respectively.

A new population genetics simulation tool called Mendel's Accountant has been developed jointly by ICR and Feed My Sheep Foundation for studying mutation and natural selection. The program is a state-of-the-art forward-time population genetics model that tracks millions of individual mutations with their unique effects on fitness and unique location within the genome through large numbers of generations. It treats the process of natural selection in a precise way.

The program allows a user to choose values for a large number of parameters such as those specifying the mutation effect distribution, reproduction rate, population size, and variations in environmental conditions. Mendel's Accountant is thus a versatile and capable research tool that can be applied to problems in human genetics, plant and animal breeding, and management of endangered species. With its user-friendly graphical user interface and its ability to run on laptop computers, it can also be fruitfully employed in teaching genetics and genetic principles, even at a high school level.

Biologically reasonable Mendel's Accountant input parameters produce output consistent with (a) the biblical account of recent creation, (b) rapid local adaptation followed by stabilization of changes in an organism’s visible features, (c) a spike in genetic variation followed by continuously declining diversity, (d) rapid genetic degeneration tapering into a more gradual but continuous genetic decline, and (e) many extinction events.

This program is freely available for personal use and can be downloaded from the web at http://mendelsaccount.sourceforge.net. When biologically realistic parameters are selected, Mendel's Accountant shows consistently that genetic deterioration is an inevitable outcome of the processes of mutation and natural selection. The primary reason is that most deleterious mutations are too subtle to be detected and eliminated by natural selection and therefore accumulate steadily generation after generation and inexorably degrade fitness.

Mendel's Accountant provides overwhelming empirical evidence that all of the "fatal flaws" inherent in evolutionary genetic theory are real. This leaves evolutionary genetic theory effectively falsified--with a degree of certainty that should satisfy any reasonable and open-minded person.